This book assesses how Vatican II opened up the Catholic Church to encounter, dialogue, and engagement with other world religions. Opening with a contribution from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, it next explores the impact, relevance, and promise of the Declaration Nostra Aetate before turning to consider how Vatican II in general has influenced interfaith dialogue and the intellectual and comparative study of world religions in the postconciliar decades, as well as the contribution (...) of particular past and present thinkers to the formation of current interreligious and comparative theological methods. Additionally, chapters consider interreligious dialogue vis-à-vis theological anthropology in conciliar documents; openness to the spiritual practices of other faith traditions as a way of encouraging positive interreligious encounter; the role of lay and new ecclesial movements in interreligious dialogue; and the development of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Finally, it includes a range of perspectives on the fruits and future of Vatican’s II’s opening to particular faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. (shrink)

Projects to restore nature inevitably disrupt the plants and animals that inhabit the land to be restored. This essay addresses the significance of feral animals. Can feral animals remain in a restored nature? I argue that an answer depends on what we mean by nature and restoration. I present several different conceptions of nature and discuss what their differences mean for the goals of restoration. While the presence of feral animals is not compatible with the dualist conception of nature as (...) that which is untouched by humans, other conceptions are more accommodating. Restoration to a benchmark of nature prior to human impact is both practically and conceptually implausible, thus more analysis is needed of alternative conceptions and their impacts on domesticated and feral plants and animals. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has traditionally focused on a defense of the intrinsic value of animals and wild habitats. However, this ethical project needs to be supplemented by a consideration of the kind of culture that can take such an ethical point of view seriously. This essay argues that one component of an environmentally responsible culture is its domesticated environment. How we construct the domesticated environment has an impact on our perception of our own identities and our relations to wild nature. If (...) we care about wild nature, we must also care about the domesticated environment in which we live our lives. This essay contributes to an ethical reflection on the need to overcome the traditional dualism between domesticated and wild, built and natural that permeates environmental ethical thinking. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has traditionally focused on a defense of the intrinsic value of animals and wild habitats. However, this ethical project needs to be supplemented by a consideration of the kind of culture that can take such an ethical point of view seriously. This essay argues that one component of an environmentally responsible culture is its domesticated environment. How we construct the domesticated environment has an impact on our perception of our own identities and our relations to wild nature. If (...) we care about wild nature, we must also care about the domesticated environment in which we live our lives. This essay contributes to an ethical reflection on the need to overcome the traditional dualism between domesticated and wild, built and natural that permeates environmental ethical thinking. (shrink)

I defend the view that the design of the built environment should be a proper part of environmental ethics. An environmentally responsible culture should be one in which citizens take responsibility for the domesticated environments in which they live, as well as for their effects on wild nature. How we build our world reveals both the possibilities in nature and our own stance toward the world. Our constructions and contrivances also objectively constrain the possibilities for the development of a human (...) way of life integrated with wild nature. An environmentally responsible culture should require a built world that reflects and projects care and respect toward nature. (shrink)

Hunting is a complex phenomenon. l examine it from four different perspectives-animal liberation, the land ethic, primitivism, and ecofeminism-and find no moral justification for sport hunting in any of them. At the same time, however, I argue that there are theoretical flaws in each of these approaches. Animal liberationists focus too much on the individual animal and ignore the difference between domestic and wild animals. Leopold’s land ethic fails to come to terms with the self-domestication of humans. I argue that (...) the holism of the land ethic does not in itself justify hunting as a human act of predation appropriate to the demands of wild biotic communities. Primitivists, such as Paul Shepard and Ortega y Gasset, mistakenly argue that hunting is an essential part of human nature and hence part of a healthy return to a natural way of life. Their argument marginalizes women’s relations to nature. Finally, I take seriously the ecofeminist claim that sport hunting is a symptom ofpatriarchy’s fixation on death and violence, although I criticize the more radical claim that women are closer to nature than men. Hunting should be investigated within the broader context of patriarchal social relations between men and women. As an act of violence it constitutes one element of a cultural matrix which is destructive to hoth women and nature. (shrink)

This essay articulates the importance of the domesticated landscape for a mature environmental ethics. Human beings are spatial beings, deeply implicated in their relationships to places, both wild and domesticated. Human identity evolves contextually through interaction with a "world." If this world obscures our perception of wild nature, it will be difficult to motivate the social and psychological will to imagine, let alone participate in, a culture that values environmentally responsible conduct. My argument is informed by a pragmatist suspicion of (...) fixed dualisms separating humans from nature, the wild from the domesticated, and the natural from the artificial. Drawing on a variety of sources, the essay calls for greater attention to the ways in which the making of our domesticated worlds can contribute to or undermine our ability to take the intrinsic value of nature seriously. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the relevance of the vocabulary of an ethics of care to ecofeminism. While this vocabulary appears to offer a promising alternative to moral extensionism and deep ecology, there are problems with the use of this vocabulary by both essentialists and conceptualists. I argue that too great a reliance is placed on personal lived experience as a basis for ecofeminist ethics and that the concept of care is insufficiently determinate to explicate the meaning of care for (...) nature. (shrink)

I explore the concept of literacy and the role it might play in environmental ethics. One of the goals of environmental ethics is to describe and contribute to the creation of an ecologically responsible culture. The creation of such a culture requires the development of knowledge and abilities that will help sustain such a culture. Since education is one of the key institutions for instilling values and world views, it is important for environmental philosophers to think about the institutionalization of (...) environmental theories in terms of their implications for the environmentally literate person. I argue that attention to literacy is significant for two reasons. First, it provides one way of evaluating the differences between competing environmental philosophies. Second, it raises the important question of what kind of person is required to carry out a particular vision of environmental responsibility. By addressing the issue of education and literacy, philosophers interested in environmental ethics can help create a vision of citizens who have democratically internalized and integrated environmental values and priorities rather than having them imposed from above. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

This essay reflects on three strategic visions of how society might develop in the direction of a more environmentally responsible culture. These strategies - green technology, ecocentrism, and civic environmentalism - offer promising elements of what we need. However, each fails in different ways to successfully explain how citizens, caught up in consumerist practices and their supporting belief systems, can be led to take the transformative steps needed to build a culture that engages responsibly and respectfully with the natural environment. (...) This essay aims to acknowledge the contributions of these three approaches, while also critically reflecting on their limitations. The core limitation is the unresolved clash between ecocentrism's focus on the vulnerability of nature's intrinsic value to any anthropogenic intervention and civic environmentalism's focus on the revival of strong civic democracy as a gateway to environmental health. (shrink)

The inaugural collection in an exciting new exchange between philosophers and geographers, this volume provides interdisciplinary approaches to the environment as space, place, and idea. Never before have philosophers and geographers approached each other's subjects in such a strong spirit of mutual understanding. The result is a concrete exploration of the human-nature relationship that embraces strong normative approaches to environmental problems.

It is in the Corinthian letters that the all-important evidence for a Christian interpretation of King Lear lies; for the major theme is love.

This book explains why contemporary liberal democracies are based on historical templates rather than revolutionary reforms; why the transition in Europe occurred during a relatively short period in the nineteenth century; why politically and economically powerful men and women voluntarily supported such reforms; how interests, ideas, and pre-existing institutions affected the reforms adopted; and why the countries that liberalized their political systems also produced the Industrial Revolution. The analysis is organized in three parts. The first part develops new rational choice (...) models of governance, the balance of authority between parliaments and kings, constitutional exchange, and suffrage reform. The second part provides historical overviews and detailed constitutional histories of six important countries. The third part provides additional evidence in support of the theory, summarizes the results, contrasts the approach taken in this book with that of other scholars, and discusses methodological issues. (shrink)

The authors mark the twentieth anniversary of the classic study by Weitzman et al., which found considerable gender stereotyping in picture books for preschool children, by replicating and extending their study with an updated sample that includes books by Black illustrators. The authors find evidence that female characters and female relationships receive considerably more attention in recent books by both conventional illustrators and Black illustrators than they did in the late 1960s. They also find, consistent with the liberal feminist aims (...) of Weitzman et al., evidence that male and female characters are shown in a more egalitarian fashion than they were in the late 1960s in books by mainstream authors. Finally, they discover that, consistent with the aims of recent Black feminist theorists, Black illustrators are more apt than others to highlight women's involvement in an ethic of caring and an ethic of personal accountability. (shrink)

Hesyre was a high court official in ancient Egypt and lived about 2650 bc during the reign of King Djoser. He managed to combine religious as well as secular posts, and has the distinction of being the first recorded physician and firstknown dentist in history. Healthcare developed at an early period in ancient Egyptian history as is supported by the evidence from the skeletal and mummified remains, from the artistic record, as well as from inscriptional and textual sources. These (...) textual sources, the medical papyri, provide details of medical procedures undertaken, drugs employed and treatments provided - some of which have influenced modern medical practice. What we know about Hesyre comes from his impressive tomb at Saqqara, the walls of which are brightly decorated with items of daily life. Additionally, the tomb contained six fine wooden panels listing Hesyres titles, among them those relating to his practice of medicine and dentistry. (shrink)

Writing only decades apart, Han Feizi (ca. 250 BCE) and Kautilya (ca. 300 BCE) were two great political thinkers who argued for strong leaders, king or emperor, to unify warring states and bring peace, who tried to show how a ruler controls his ministers as well as the populace, defended the need for spies and violence, and developed the key ideas needed to support the bureaucracies of the emerging and unified states of China and India respectively. Whereas both thinkers (...) disliked the new merchants, Han Feizi seems content with a traditional feudal economy, whereas Kautilya wanted to use the state to increase production and the wealth in the king's treasury. Kautilya also had much more extensive discussions of war and diplomacy. (shrink)

In his panegyric of Avitus, his father-in-law, the poet Sidonius gives a vivid and often detailed picture of the career of the future emperor from his boyhood until he gained the supreme power in the West in the year 455, which he owed to his ability and accomplishments in warfare, diplomacy and administration. He also enjoyed strong support from both Goths and Gauls, and his repeated success in managing the volatility and the aspirations of the Goths is a major theme. (...) This short note seeks to contribute to the understanding of his emergence as Augustus by proposing a new interpretation of a pivotal passage (lines 519–24), quoted below. The context can be briefly given. Sidonius has painted a graphic picture of the reaction among the Goths to the news of the Vandal capture of Rome in the year 455 (lines 441–57). In the ensuing assembly of Gothic elders Avitus (who happens to be with them at Toulouse at this moment) gives a speech that vigorously praises peace (lines 458–86), and this is favourably received. There follows a speech from the Gothic king, Theoderic II, in which he puts his own strong case for an agreement between Goths and Gauls, and seeks to persuade Avitus to fill the vacuum in Rome and Italy caused by the recent death of the emperor Petronius Maximus and take the name of Augustus (lines 489–518). (shrink)

Through 32 in-depth surveys with drag kings, I ask how do trans*/nonbinary individuals find a way to make a home in the Southeastern United States? I answer this by examining the use of drag kinging as a resource to explore gender identity and find resources for gender transition. This study adds to previous research on drag kinging by expanding beyond large cities and college towns to include a broader look at the Southeast, where queer lives have often been rendered invisible. (...) I highlight the importance of geographic location on attitudes about gender and resources available to trans*/nonbinary people. In contrast to other areas of the country, trans*/nonbinary drag kings in the Southeast use drag as a place to explore a “felt” identity that is stifled in the broader culture. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. -- War on war, by Lewis Thomas -- 2. -- Silent genocide, by Abdus Salam -- 3. -- Error: a stage of knowledge, by Paulo Freire -- 4. -- Doing without a revolution?, by Tahar Ben Jelloun -- 5. -- Stop torture, by Manfred Nowak -- 6. -- Truth, force and law, by Rabindranath Tagore -- 7. -- Violence is an insult to the human being, by Federico Mayor -- 8. -- Totalitarianism banishes politics, by (...) Vaclav Havel -- 9. -- No one will stop us. , by Desmond Tutu -- 10. -- Colonialism and the youth bomb, by Joseph Ki-Zerbo -- 11. -- The shedding of blood -- 12. -- Letter from Nagasaki, by Takashi Nagai -- 13. -- Down with exclusion!, by Herbert de Souza -- 14. -- The nower to sav 'no'. bv loan Martin-Brown -- 15. -- Inquiry into a taboo, by Ouassila Si Saber -- 16. -- The illusions of rationalism, by Ernesto Sabato -- 17. -- The 'poisonous weed', by Ba Jin -- 18. -- Humanity, an ongoing creation, by Ali Ahmad Said Esber (Adonis) -- 19. -- Image, writing and the vandal, by Alberto Moravia -- 20. -- The charms of calumny, by Andres Bello -- 21. -- On the threshold of eternity, by the Abbe Pierre -- 22. -- The control of force, by Karl Jaspers -- 23. -- The nature of force, by Simone Weil -- 24. -- The debt of justice, by Martin Luther King -- 25. -- Democracy and barbarism, by Sergei S. Averintsev -- 26. -- If all the animals should disappear, by Richard Fitter -- 27. -- Irony and compassion, by Octavio Paz -- 28. -- Against all hatred, by Aime Cesaire -- 29. -- Creating differences, by Daniel J. Boorstin -- 30. -- I dislike the word 'tolerance', by Mahatma Gandhi. (shrink)